By Paul Rosta, Senior Editor<\/i><\/p>\n
As more cities require commercial building owners to report energy consumption, what\u2019s next for utilities benchmarking? A panel of experts tackled the issue on Thursday during the Institute of Real Estate Management\u2019s Fall Leadership Conference in Orlando.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese programs are going to continue to evolve, and as more cities adopt these policies, there are going to be a lot of lessons learned,\u201d said the panel\u2019s moderator, Nathalie Osborn of Chicago-based GreenPoint Partners L.L.C.<\/p>\n
\u201cCities don\u2019t know anything about the buildings that exist within them,\u201d said Adam Sledd, program director for commercial real estate engagement at the Institute for Market Transformation, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group that promotes energy efficiency and sustainable building practices. Addressing an audience of real estate managers and other professionals, he added, \u201cYou\u2019re the people who are faced with helping cities get their arms around it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A major challenge for property managers and other stakeholders is that utilities are behind in using technology to track energy performance of buildings. As a result, \u201cThe utilities are scrambling every time a benchmarking law is passed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than waiting for lawmakers to impose benchmarking on them some forward-thinking industry groups are taking the initiative and proposing their own guidelines. As Sledd put it, \u201cWe want to lead the process.\u201d As an example, he cited Chicago\u2019s benchmarking rules, which were drafted by the local chapter of Building Owners and Managers (International) Association.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s latest version of the Energy Star program is boosting benchmarking efforts, said Danielle Horton, principal with Verdani Partners, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based consulting firm specializing in sustainability-related services. She cited the new provisions for sharing information when ownership or management changes.<\/p>\n
Horton also said she looks forward to the day when it is standard practice for utilities to provide usage data directly to property managers. \u201cIf we could receive that directly from the utility bills . . . that would be so helpful.\u201d For instance, that practice makes it easier to obtain usage data for net-leased properties whose utility bills are paid directly by tenants.<\/p>\n
Other helpful tools include a U.S. Department of Energy program that permits energy efficiency evaluation, even when utility bills are unavailable, said Jonathan Payne, sustainability analyst at Liberty Property Trust. The Malvern, Pa.-based REIT was among the first major owners to start benchmarking a managed portfolio, an effort that encompassed 156 office and industrial buildings and 17 million square feet. That still left the rest of its 103 million-square-foot portfolio untouched, so Liberty asked Goby to provide additional analysis, Payne said.<\/p>\n
Utility-sponsored incentives are changing because, Sledd said, \u201cThere are only so many light bulbs they can hand out.\u201d For the next iteration of energy-efficiency initiatives, \u201cThey want to get more into building operations.\u201d A major new category of tools will be software that permits remote energy audits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As more cities require commercial building owners to report energy consumption, what\u2019s next for utilities benchmarking? A panel of experts tackled the issue on Thursday during the Institute of Real Estate Management\u2019s Fall Leadership Conference in Orlando.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":952,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21742],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004105842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n